participant each of other Rather I concluded that seeing many of the best learned Protestants did grant The Church of Rome to be a true Church though peradventure faulty in some things And contrarily not only the Catholicks but also the Puritans Anabaptists Brownists c. did all deny the Church of England to be a true Church therefore it would be more safe and secure to become a Roman Catholick who have a true Church by consent of both parties than to remain a Protestant who do alone plead their own cause having all the other against them For the testimony of our selves and our contraries also is much more sufficient and more certain than to justifie our selves alone Yet I resisted and stood out still and betook my self again to read over and examine the chiefest Controversies especially those about the Church which is cardo negotii and herein because the Bearer stayes now a day or two longer I will inlarge my self more than I purposed and so I would needs peruse the Original quotations and Texts of the Councils Fathers and Doctors in the Authors themselves which were alledged on both parts to see if they were truly cited and according to the meaning of the Authors a labour of much labour and of travel sometime to find the Books wherein I found much fraud committed by the Protestants and that the Catholicks had far greater and better armies of evident Witnesses on their sides much more than the Protestants in so much that the Centurists are fain often to censure and reject the plain testimonies of those Ancients as if their new censure were sufficient to disauthorize the others ancient sentences And so I remember Danaeus in Commentariis super D. Augustin Enchirid. ad Laurentium Where S. Augustin plainly avoucheth Purgatory He rejects S. Augustines Opinion saying hic est naevus Augustini But I had rather follow S. Augustine's Opinion than his Censure for who are they to control the Fathers There are indeed some few places in Authors which prima facie seem to favour Protestants as many Hereticks alledge some Texts of Scriptures whose sound of Words seem to make for their Opinions But being well examined and interpreted according to the Analogy of faith and according to many other places of the same Authors where they do more fully explain their Opinions so they appear to be wrested and from the purpose In fine I found my self evidently convinced both by many Authorities and by many Arguments which now I do not remember all nor can here repeat those which I do remember But only some few Arguments I will relate unto you which prevailed most with me besides those aforementioned First therefore I could never approve the Protestants evasion by Invisibility of their Church For though sometime it may be diminished and obscured yet the Catholick Church must ever be visible set on a Hill and not as Light hid under a Bushel for how should it enlighten and teach her Children if invisible or how should Strangers and Pagans and others be converted unto her or where should any find the Sacraments if invisible Also the true Church in all places and all Ages ever holds one Vniformity and Concord in all matters of Faith though not in all matters of Ceremony or Government But the Protestants Church hath not in all Ages nor in all places such uniform concord no not in one Age as is manifest to all the World and as Father Parsons proved against Fox's Martyrs Wickliffe Husse and the rest Ergo the Protestants Church not the true Church Again by that saying Haereses ad originem revocasse est refutasse and so considering Luther's first rancor against the Dominicans his disobedience and contempt of his former Superiours his vow-breaking and violent courses even causing rebellion against the Emperour whom he reviles and other Princes most shamefully surely such arrogant disobedience Schism and Rebellions had no warrant nor vocation of God to plant his Church but of the Devil to begin a Schism and a Sect. So likewise for Calvin to say nothing of all that D. Bolsecus brings against him I do urge only what Mr. Hooker Dr. Bancroft and Saravia do prove aganst him for his unquietness and ambition revolving the Commonwealth and so unjustly expelling and depriving the Bishop of Geneva and other temporal Lords of their due obedience and ancient inheritance Moreover I refer you to the stirs broils sedition and murthers which Knox and the Geneva-Gospellers caused in Scotland against their lawful Governours against their Queen and against our King even in his Mothers Belly Nor will I insist upon the passions which first moved King Henry violently to divorce himself from his lawful Wife to fall out with the Pope his Friend to marry the Lady Anne Bullen and soon after to behead her to disinherit Queen Mary and inable Queen Elizabeth and presently to disinherit Queen Elizabeth and to restore Queen Mary to hang up Catholicks for Traytors and to burn Protestants for Hereticks to destroy Monasteries and to pill Churches Were these fit beginnings for the Gospel of Christ I pray was this Man a good Head of Gods Church for my part I beseech our Lord bless me from being a Member of such a Head or such a Church I come to France and Holland where you know by the Hugonots and Geuses all Calvinists what Civil Wars they have raised how much Blood they have shed what Rebellion Rapine and Desolations they have occasioned principally for their new Religion founded in Blood like Draco's Laws But I would gladly know whether you can approve such bloody broils for Religion or no I know Protestants de facto do justifie the Civil Wars of France and Holland for good against their Kings but I could never understand of them quo jure If the Hollanders be Rebels as they are why did we support them if they be no Rebels because they fight for the pretended liberty of their ancient Priviledges and for their new Religion we see it is an easie matter to pretend Liberties and also why may not others as well revolt for their old Religion Or I beseech you why is that accounted Treason against the State in Catholicks which is called Reason of State in Protestants I reduce this Argument to few Words That Church which is founded and begun in Malice Disobedience Passion Blood and Rebellion cannot be the true Church but it is evident to the World That the Protestant Churches in Germany France Holland Geneva c. were so founded and in Geneva and Holland are still continued in Rebellion ergo They are not true Churches Furthermore where is not Succession both of true Pastors and of true Doctrine there is no true Church But among Protestants is no succession of true Pastors for I omit here to treat of Doctrine ergo no true Church I prove the minor where is no consecration nor ordination of Bishops and Priests according to the due Form and right intention required necessarily by the
ours and S. Augustines in so many words And this is all the Headship of the Church we give to Kings Whereof a Queen is as well capable as a King since it is an act of Authority not Ecclesiastical Ministery proceeding from eminency of power not of knowledge or holiness Wherein not only a learned King as ours is but a good old Woman as Queen Elizabeth besides her Princely dignity was may excel as your selves confess your infallible Judge himself But in power he saith he is above all which not to examine for the present in this Power Princes are above all their Subjects I trow and S. Augustine saith plainly to command and forbid even in the Religion of God still according to Gods Word which is the touchstone of Good and Evil. Neither was King Henry the Eight the first Prince that exercised this power witness David and Solomon and the rest of the Kings of Iudah before Christ. And since that Kings were Christians The affairs of the Church have depended upon them and the greatest Synods have been by their Decree as Socrates expresly saith Nor did King Henry claim any new thing in this Land but restored to the Crown the ancient right thereof which sundry his Predecessors had exercised as our Historians and Lawyers with one consent affirm The rest of your induction of Archbishops Bishops and whole Clergy in their Convocation-House and a Council of all Lutherans Calvinists Protestants c. is but a needless pomp of words striving to win by a form of discourse that which gladly shall be yielded at the first demand They might all err if they were as many as the Sand on the Sea Shoar if they did not rightly apply the Rule of Holy Scriptures by which as you acknowledge the external Iudge which you seek must proceed As to your demand therefore how you should be sure when and wherein they did and did not err where you should have fixed your foot to forbear to skirmish with your confirmation That though à posse ad esse non valet semper consequentia yet aliquando valet frustra dicitur potentia quae nunquam ducitur in actum To the former whereof I might tell you that without question nunquam valet And to the second that I can very well allow that errandi potentia among Protestants be ever frustra This I say freely That if you come with this resolution to learn nothing by discourse or evidence of Scripture but only by the meer pronouncing of a humane external Judge's Mouth to whom you would yield your understanding in all his determinations If as the Jesuites teach their Scholars you will wholly deny your own judgment and resolve that if this Iudge shall say that is black which appears to your Eyes white you will say it is black too you have posed all the Protestants they cannot tell how to teach you infallibly Withal I must tell you thus much that this preparation of mind in a Scholar as you are in a Minister yea in a Christian that had but learned his Creed much more that had from a Child known the Holy Scriptures that are able to make us wise to salvation through the Faith that is in Christ Iesus were too great weakness and to use the Apostles Phrase childishness of understanding But at length you heard a sound of Harmony and Consent that in the Catholick Church as in Noah 's Ark was infallibility and possibility of salvation which occasioned you to seek out and to enter into this Ark of Noah The sound of Consent and Infallibility is most pleasing and harmonious and undoubtedly ever and only to be found in the Catholick Church to wit in the Rule of Faith and in the Holy Scriptures and such necessary Doctrine as perfectly concordeth with the same But as in Song many discords do pass in smaller Notes without offence of the Ears so should they in smaller matters of Opinion in the Church without the offence of judicious and charitable minds Which yet I speak not to justifie them nay I am verily of the mind That this is the thing that hath marred the Church Musick in both kinds that too much liberty is taken in descant to depart from the Ground and as one saith notae nimium denigrantur The fault of the Italians though they think themselves the only Songsters in the World But to return to you tell me I beseech you good Mr. Waddesworth was this the Harmony that transported you The Pope himself saith I cannot err and to me thou oughtest to have recourse for decision of doubts in matters of Faith And whereas this is not only denyed by Protestants but hath been ever by the French and anciently I am sure by the Spanish lately by some Italian Divines also unless he use due means to find the truth yea whereas it is the issue of all the Controversies of this age in this snare you fastened your Foot This was the Center that settled your Conscience this the solid and firm foundation of your Faith What and did it not move you that some limit this infallibility of the Pope thus If he enter Canonically if he proceed advisedly and maturely using that diligence that is fit to find out the Truth that is as you said before proceeding by the Rule the Scriptures Albeit to the Fathers of the African Council it seemed incredible as they write in their Synodal Epistle to P. Coelestine standing for Appeals to himself that God can inspire the right in tryal to one denying it to many Bishops in a Council Tell us then who made you secure of these things or did you in truth never so much as make question of them but hearing this harmonious sound The Pope is the Infallible Iudge you trusted the new Masters of that side Gregory de Valentia and Bellarmine that whether the Pope in defining do use diligence or no if he do define he shall define infallibly Alas Sir if this were the rest you found for the soale of your Foot instead of moveable Water you fell upon mire and puddle Or rather like to another Dove mentioned in Scripture columba seducta non habens Cor by the most chaffy shrap that ever was set before the Eyes of winged Fowl were brought to the door-fal Excuse my grief mixed I confess with some indignation but more love to you though I thus write Many things there be in Popery inconvenient and to my conceit weakly and ungroundedly affirmed to say no more but this is so absurd and palpable a flattery as to omit to speak of you for my part I cannot be perswaded that Paulus the Fifth believes it himself For consider I pray what needed anciently the Christian Emperours and sometimes at the request of the Bishops of Rome themselves to have gathered together so many Bishops from so divers parts of the World to celebrate Councils if it had been known and believed then that one Mans Sentence
the true Catholick Church is such as cannot be hid yet considering that it consists of two sorts of people the one which is the greater part who do not indeed properly belong to it the other the fewer truely and properly so called to whom all the glorious things spoken of the Church do agree The face therefore of the mixt Church may be over-run with scandals as in all times almost The greatest number may sometime be Idolaters as in the Kingdom of Israel under Achab. The principallest in authority may be false teachers as the Priests and Prophets in Ieremies time the sons of pestilence may sit in Moses Chair as they did in Christs time Yet still the Church is the ground and pillar of Truth in the Elect Ipsa est praedestinata columna firmamentum veritatis The Sheep hear not Seducers Iohn 10.8 to wit finally and in any damnable point Thus was it before Christ thus since thus in the Church of England before yea and since it was reformed Thus in that of Rome it self at this day There is a distinction of Thomas of those that be in the Church which rightly interpreted agrees fully herewith There are some De Ecclesia numero tantúm Some numero merito The former are such as have only fidem informem the latter formatam Now though the persons of such as be in the Church be visible yet the Faith and Charity of men we see not and to argue from the priviledges of the Church numero merito to the Church numero tantum is a perpetual but a palpable paralogisme of the Romish faction which is grosser yet when they argue to the Church representative and grossest of all when one man is made the Church and he as themselves grant may fall out a Devil incarnate CHAP. IX Of lack of Vniformity in matters of Faith in all Ages and Places ANd this self same Paralogism you were beguiled with in the next Point of Vniformity and Concord in matters of Faith The true Church ye say ever holds such Vniformity It is utterly false in the Visible and mixt Church both before Christ and since It is false in the Church of Rome it self whose new-coined Faith patched to the Creed by Pius the Fourth came in piece-meal out of private Opinions and corrupt usages nor ever was in any Age uniformly holden or taught as matter of Faith even in it as it is at this day So by your own Discourse it should be no true Church And taking matters of Faith so largely as it seems you do in opposition to such things as be Ceremonies or of Government it is untrue also of the Church of the Elect or properly so called For though the Faith in the Principles thereof be ever the same yet many Conclusions of Faith have sometimes lyen unsearched out and like some parts of the World unknown till by the industry of Gods Servants occasioned also by the importunity and opposition of Hereticks they were discovered Sundry common errors also there have been which in succeeding Ages have been cleared and reformed as the Chiliasts That Angels have Bodies That Children after they be baptized are to be communicated That Hereticks are to be rebaptized To the Assumption First The Protestants challenge not to themselves any Church as their own which I must advertise you of here because formerly also you do use this Phrase The Church is Christs both the visible and invisible Next taking matters of Faith for foundations or Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation the Church of Christ hath in all Ages had Uniform concord with the Protestants at this day in such matters as appeareth by the Common Rule of Faith the Creed and so hath also the Church under the Popes tyranny As to the Trent Additions they are foreign to the Faith as neither Principles nor Conclusions thereof Neither can your selves shew uniform consent and concord in them and namely in the 11. of them in any one Age especially as matters of Salvation as now they are canonized How much less can ye shew it in all other conclusions of Faith whereabout there have been among you as are now among us and ever will be differences of Opinions without any prejudice for all that unto the unity of the Faith of the Church and title to the name of it As for Wicliff Hus and the rest if they have any of them born record to the Truth and resisted any innovation of corrupt Teachers in their times even to Blood they are justly to be termed Martyrs yea albeit they saw not all corruptions but in some were themselves carried away with the stream of error Else if because they erred in some things they be no Martyrs or because we dissent from them in some things we are not of the same Church both you and we must quit all claim to S. Cyprian Iustin Martyr and many more whom we count our Antients and Predecessors and bereave them also of the honour of Martyrdom which so long they have enjoyed You see I hope by this time the weakness of your Argument CHAP. X. Of the Original of Reformation in Luther Calvin Scotland England c. IN your next Motive taken from the Original of Reformation before I come to answer your Argument shortly coucht in form I must endeavour to reform your judgment in sundry points of Story wherein partly you are mis-led and abused by Parsons and others of that Spirit partly you have mistaken some particulars and out of a false imagination framed a like discourse First for Luther it was not his rancor against the Dominicans that stirred him up against the Pope but the shameful merchandize of Indulgences set to sale in Germany to the advantage of Magdalen sister to Pope Leo the Tenth Believe herein if not Sleidan yet Guicciardine l. 13. And of all that mention those affairs it is acknowledged that at the first and for a good time he shewed all obedience and reverence to the Pope The new History of the Council of Trent written by an Italian a Subject and part of the Church of Rome as should appear by the Epistle Dedicatory of the Reverend and learned Archbishop of Spalato prefixed to his Majesty speaketh thus of the matter Questo diede occasione c. This gave occasion to Martin to pass from Indulgences to the Authority of the Pope which being by others proclaimed for the highest in the Church by him was made subject to a General Council lawfully celebrated Whereof he said that there was need in that instant and urgent necessity And as the heat of disputation continued by how much the more the Popes power was by others exalted so much the more was it by him abased yet so as Martin contained himself within the terms of speaking modestly of the person of Leo and saving sometimes his judgment Again after his departure from the presence of Cardinal Cajetan at Augusta he saith He wrote a Letter to the Cardinal confessing
religious qualities of those he ordained as well as he satisfied himself by his Examination of their capacity and knowledge He had alwayes a considerable number of his Clergy assisting him at his Ordinations and he alwayes Preached and administred the Sacrament on those occasions himself And he never ordained one a Presbyter till he had been at least a year a Deacon that so he might have a good account of his behaviour in that lower degree before he raised him higher He lookt upon that power of Ordination as the most sacred part of a Bishop's trust and that in which the Laws of the Land had laid no sort of imposition on them so that this was intirely in their Hands and therefore he thought they had so much the more to answer for to God on that account and he weighed carefully in his thoughts the importance of those Words Lay hands suddenly on no Man and be not a partaker of other Mens Sins Therefore he used all the precaution that was possible for him in so important an affair He was never prevail'd on by any recommendations nor importunities to ordain any as if Orders had been a sort of Freedom in a Company by which a Man was to be enabled to hold as great a portion of the Ecclesiastical Revenue as he could compass when he was thus qualified Nor would he ever ordain any without a title to a particular Flock For he thought a title to a maintenance was not enough as if the Church should only take care that none in Orders might be in want but he saw the abuses of those emendicated titles and of the Vagrant Priests that went about as Journeymen plying for Work to the great reproach of that sacred Imployment and in this he also followed the Rule set by the fourth general Council that carried this matter so high as to annul all Orders that were given without a particular designation of the Place where the person was to serve For he made the Primitive times his Standard and resolved to come as near it as he could considering the corruption of the Age in which he lived He remembred well the grounds he went on when he refused to pay Fees for the Title to his Benefice in Suffolk and therefore took care that those who were ordained by him or had Titles to Benefices from him might be put to no charge For he wrote all the Instruments himself and delivered them to the persons to whom they belonged out of his own Hands and adjured them in a very solemn manner to give nothing to any of his Servants And that he might hinder it all that was possible he waited on them alwayes on those occasions to the Gate of his House that so he might be sure that they should not give any gratification to his Servants He thought it lay on him to pay them such convenient wages as became them and not to let his Clergy be burthened with his Servants And indeed the abuses in that were grown to such a pitch that it was necessary to correct them in so exemplary a manner His next care was to observe the behaviour of his Clergy he knew the lives of Churchmen had generally much more efficacy than their Sermons or other labours could have and so he set himself much to watch over the Manners of his Priests and was very sensibly touched when an Irishman said once to him in open Court That the Kings Priests were as bad as the Popes Priests These were so grosly ignorant and so openly scandalous both for drunkenness and all sort of lewdness that this was indeed a very heavy reproach Yet he was no rude nor morose Reformer but considered what the times could bear He had great tenderness for the weakness of his Clergy when he saw reason to think otherwise well of them and he helpt them out of their troubles with the care and compassion of a Father One of his Clergy held two Livings but had been cousened by a Gentleman of Quality to farm them to him for less than either of them was worth and he acquainted the Bishop with this Who upon that writ very civilly and yet as became a Bishop to the Gentleman perswading him to give up the bargain but having received a sullen and haughty answer from him he made the Minister resign up both to him for they belonged to his Gift and he provided him with another Benefice and put two other worthy Men in these two Churches and so he put an end both to the Gentleman 's fraudulent bargain and to the Churchman's Plurality He never gave a Benefice to any without obliging them by Oath to perpetual and personal residence and that they should never hold any other Benefice with that So when one Buchanan was recommended to him and found by him to be well qualified he offered him a Collation to a Benefice but when Buchanan saw that he was to be bound to Residence and not to hold another Benefice he that was already possessed of one with which he resolved not to part would not accept of it on those Terms And the Bishop was not to be prevailed with to dispense with it though he liked this Man so much the better because he found he was akin to the great Buchanan whose Paraphrase of the Psalms he loved beyond all other Latin Poetry The Latin form of his Collations will be found at the end of this Relation which concluded thus Obtesting you in the Lord and enjoyning you by vertue of that obedience which you owe to the great Shepherd that you will diligently feed his Flock committed to your care which he purchased with his own Blood that you instruct them in the Catholick Faith and perform Divine Offices in a Tongue understood by the people and above all things that you shew your self a pattern to Believers in good Works so that the adversaries may be put to shame when they find nothing for which they can reproach you He put all the Instruments in one whereas devices had been found out for the increase of Fees to divide these into several Writings nor was he content to write this all with his own hand but sometimes he gave Induction likewise to his Clergy for he thought none of these Offices were below a Bishop and he was ready to ease them of charge all he could He had by his zeal and earnest endeavours prevailed with all his Presbyters to reside in their Parishes one only excepted whose name was Iohnston He was of a mean Education yet he had very quick Parts but they lay more to the Mechanical than to the Spiritual Architecture For the Earl of Strafford used him for an Engineer and gave him the management of some great Buildings that he was raising in the County of Wicklo But the Bishop finding the Man had a very mercurial Wit and a great capacity he resolved to set him to work that so he might not be wholly useless to the Church and therefore
print and was published by Dr. Bernard the Text is that of the Revelation 18.4 Come out of her Babylon my people And the design of it is to prove that the See of Rome is the Babylon meant in that Text but in this he mixes an Apology for some that were in that Communion and I doubt not but he had his Friend P. Paulo in his thoughts when he spoke it The passage is remarkable and therefore I will set it down WHerein observe first he calls his people to come out of Babylon a plain Argument that there are many not only good Moral and Civil honest Men there but good Christians not redeemed only but in the possession of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which may be confirmed by these reasons First There is amongst these that are under the tyranny of the Romish Babylon the Sacrament of entrance into the Covenant of Grace Baptism by which those that are partakers thereof are made Members of Christ the Children of God and Heirs of Eternal Life And these that have but this Seal of God's Covenant viz. Infants are no small and contemptible part of God's people though as yet they cannot hear this Voice of Christ calling out of Babylon besides this there is a publication of the tenure of the Covenant of Grace to such as are of Years though not so openly and purely as it might and ought yet so as the grounds of the Catechisme are preached sin is shewed Christ's redemption or the Story of it is known Faith in him is called for and this Faith is by the Grace of God wrought in some For the Word of God and his Calling is not fruitless but like the rain returneth not in vain and where true Faith is Men are translated from death to life he that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life Some Men perhaps may object the Faith which they describe and call by this name of Catholick Faith is none other but such as the Devils may have I answer Religion is not Logick He that cannot give a true definition of the Soul is not for that without a Soul so he that defines not Faith truly yet may have true Faith Learned Divines are not all of accord touching the definition of it But if as by the whole stream of the Scripture it should seem it be a trust and cleaving unto God this Faith many there have the Love of our Lord Iesus Christ is wrought in many there now he that loveth Christ is loved of him and of the Father also and because the proof of true love to Christ is the keeping of his Sayings there are good Works and according to the measure of knowledg great conscience of obedience Yea will some Man say But that which marreth all is the Opinion of merit and satisfaction Indeed that is the School Doctrine but the Conscience enlightned to know it self will easily act that part of the Publican who smote his Breast and said God be merciful to me a sinner I remember a good advice of one of that side Let others saith he that have committed few sins and done many good works satisfie for their sins But whatsoever thou dost refer it to the Honour of God so as whatsoever good come from thee thou resolve to do it to please God accounting thy works too little to satisfie for thy sins For as for thy sins thou must offer Christ's Works his Pains and Wounds and his death it self to him together with that love of his out of which he endured these things for thee These are available for the satisfaction for thy sins But thou whatsoever thou dost or sufferest offer it not for thy sins to God for but his love and good pleasure wishing to find the more grace with him whereby thou mayest do more greater and more acceptable Works to him let the love of God then be to thee the cause of well-living and the hope of well-working Thus he and I doubt not but many there be on that side that follow this counsel herewith I shall relate the Speech of a wise and discreet Gentleman my neighbour in England who lived and dyed a Recusant he demanded one time What was the worst Opinion that we could impute to the Church of Rome It was said There was none more than this of our merits And that Cardinal Bellarmine not only doth uphold them but saith we may trust in them so it be done soberly and saith they deserve Eternal life not only in respect of God's Promises and Covenant but also in regard of the Work it self Whereupon he answered Bellarmine was a learned Man and could perhaps defend what he wrote by learning But for his part he trusted to be saved only by the merits of his Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ and as for good Works he would do all that he could Et valeant quantum valere possint To proceed In or under the Obedience of Rome there is Persecution and that is a better mark of Christ's people then Bellarmine's Temporal felicity All that will live godly in Christ Iesus saith the Apostle shall suffer persecution ye shall be hated of all Men for my Names sake saith our Saviour and so are all they on that side that are less superstitious than others or dare speak of redress of abuses yea there is Martyrdome for a free opposing Mens Traditions Image-worshippers Purgatory and the like Add That in obedience to this call of Christ there do some come daily from thence and in truth how could our Saviour call his people from thence if he had none there How could the Apostles say that Antichrist from whose captivity they are called shall sit in the Temple of God since that Ierusalem is finally and utterly desolated unless the same Apostle otherwhere declaring himself had shewed us his meaning that the Church is the House of God and again ye are the Temple of the living God and the Temple of God is Holy which are ye It will be said that there are on that side many gross errors many open Idolatries and Superstitions so as those which live there must needs be either partakers of them and like minded or else very Hypocrites But many errours and much ignorance so it be not affected may stand with true Faith in Christ and when there is true Contrition for one sin that is because it displeaseth God there is a general and implicite repentance for all unknown sins God's Providence in the general revolt of the ten Tribes when Elias thought himself left alone had reserved seven thousand that had not bowed to the Image of Baal and the like may be conceived here since especially the Idolatry practised under the obedience of Mystical Babylon is rather in false and will-worship of the true God and rather commended as profitable than enjoyned as absolutely necessary and the corruptions there maintained are rather in a superfluous addition than retraction in any thing necessary
of Grace where he reduceth the whole practice of Christianity unto three Heads of living Soberly justly and Godly This last directing our carriage towards God the midle most towards our Neighbour and the foremost towards our Selves Now since this is a direction for our whole Life it seems to me that we have no more to do at any time but to conn this Lesson more perfectly with some particular application of such parts of it as are most suitable to the present occasions And as to Sobriety first under which the Vertues of Humility Modesty Temperance Chastity and Contentedness are contained since this is a time wherein as the Prophet saith The Lord of Hosts calleth to weeping and mourning and pulling off the Hair and girding with Sack-cloth you shall by my advice conform your self to those that by the Hand of God suffer such things Let your apparel and Dress be mournful as I doubt not but that your Mind is your Dyet sparing and course rather than full and liberal frame your self to the indifferency whereof the Apostle speaketh In whatsoever state you shall be therewith to be content to be full and to be hungry to abound and to want Remember now that which is the Lot of others you know not how soon it may be your own Learn to despise and defie the vain and falsly called wealth of this World whereof you now see we have so casual and uncertain a possession This for Sobriety the first part of the Lesson pertaining to your self Now for Iustice which respects others and containeth the Vertues of Honour to Superiors discreet and equal government of Inferiors peaceableness to all Meekness Mercy just dealing in matters of getting and spending Gratitude Liberality just Speech and desires God's Judgments being in the Earth the Inhabitants of the World should learn Righteousness as the Prophet speaketh Call to mind therefore and bethink you if in any of these you have failed and turn your Feet to God's Testimonies certainly these times are such wherein you may be afflicted and say with the Psalmist Horrour hath taken hold of me and Rivers of Tears run down mine Eyes because they keep not thy Laws Rebelling against Superiors Misleading not only by Example but by Compulsion Inferiors laying their Hand to them that were at peace with them unjustly spoiling and unthankfully requiting those that had shewed them kindness no Faith nor Truth in their Promises Judge by the way of the School that teacheth Christ thus are these his doings as for those that suffer I am well assured I shall not need to inform you or stir you up to mercy and compassion That which is done in this kind is done to Christ himself and shall be put upon account in your reckoning and rewarded accordingly at his glorious appearance The last and principal part of our Lesson remains which teacheth how to behave our selves Godly or religiously to this belong First the Duties of Gods inward Worship as Fear Love and Faith in God then outward as Invocation the holy use of his Word and Sacraments Name and Sabbaths The Apostle makes it the whole End and Work for which we were set in this World to seek the Lord yet in publick affliction we are specially invited thereto as it is written of Iehoshaphat when a great multitude came to invade him He set his Face to seek the Lord and called the people to a solemn fast So the Church professeth in the Prophet Isaiah In the way of thy Iudgments Lord we have waited for thee the desire of our Soul is to thy Name and to the remembrance of thee With my Soul have I desired thee in the Night yea with my Spirit within me will I seek thee early In this publick Calamity therefore it is our duty to turn to him that smiteth us and to humble our selves under his mighty Hand to conceive a reverend and Religious fear towards him that only by turning away his countenance can thus trouble us against that of Man which can do no more but kill the Body Again to renew our love to our heavenly Father that now offereth himself to us as to Children and to give a proof of that Love that we bear to our Saviour in the keeping of his Sayings hating in comparison of him and competition with him Father Mother Children Goods and Life it self which is the condition and proof of his Disciples and above all to receive and to re-inforce our Faith and Affiance which is now brought unto the tryal of the fiery Furnace and of the Lions Den O that it might be found to our honour praise and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. In the mean space even now let us be partakers of Christ's Sufferings and hear him from Heaven encouraging us Be thou faithful unto Death and I will give thee a Crown of Life Touching Prayer we have this gracious invitation Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will hear thee the example of all Gods Saints and of our Saviour in his agony to this belong the humble confession of our Sins with earnest request of Pardon the complaint of our Misery and danger with request of succour and protection we have besides the intercession of our Advocate with the Father the cry of the innocent Blood that hath been cruelly shed and the Lords own interesting himself in the cause so as we may say with the Psalmist Arise O God plead thine own cause remember how the foolish Man yea the Man of Sin reproacheth thee daily Forget not the voice of thine Enemies the tumult of those that rise against thee encreaseth continually That Psalm and many others as the 6 13 35 43 71 74 79 80 88 92 94 102 115 123 130 140 142. do give Precedents of Prayers in such times as these and the Prayer of Daniel and Ezra 9. of Asa and Iehoshaphat 2 Chron. 14. and 26.12 The Stories of David's flight before Absolom and Iehoshaphat's behaviour when the Enemies came against him of Hezekiah's in Sennacherib's Invasion Isa. 37. and the whole book of Esther are fit Scriptures now to be read that through the patience and comfort of them we might have hope Now because we know not how soon we may be called to sanctifie God's name by making profession thereof you may perhaps desire to know what to say in that day You may openly profess your not doubting of any Article of the Catholick Faith shortly laid down in the Creed or more largely laid down in the Holy Scriptures but that you consent not to certain Opinions which are no points of Faith which have been brought into common belief without warrant of Scriptures or pure Antiquity as Namely That it is of necessity to Salvation to be under the Pope That the Scriptures ought not to be read of the common people That the Doctrine of Holy Scripture is not sufficient to Salvation That the Service of God ought to be in a Language not understood of the people That
Letter from him requiring answer to the former from Madrid in Spain April 14. 1619. p. 282. 3. The Answer to the last Letter Dated Aug. 5. 1619. p. 284. 4. A Letter from Mr. Waddesworth upon the receipt of the former From Madrid dated Octob. 28. 1619. received May 23. 1620. p. 291. 5. The Answer to the last Letter June 15. 1620. p. 294. 6. A Letter from Mr. Waddesworth from Madrid June 8. 1620. p. 298 7. A Letter of Mr. Dr. Halls sent to Mr. Waddesworth and returned into England with his Marginal Notes p. 300. 8. A Letter returning it inclosed to Mr. Dr. Hall p. 304. 9. A Letter sent to Mr. Waddesworth together with the Examination of his Motives Octob. 22. 1620. p. 307. 10. The Examination of the Motives in the first Letter p. 308. The Heads of the Motives reduced unto twelve Chapters answering unto the like Figures in the Margent of the first of Mr. Waddesworth's Letters OF the Preamble The titles Catholick Papist Traytor Idolater The uniformity of Faith in Protestant Religion p. 311. Of the contrariety of Sects pretended to be amongst Reformers Their differences how matters of Faith Of each pretending Scripture and the Holy Ghost p. 319. Of the want of a humane external infallible Iudge and Interpreter The Objections answered First That Scriptures are oft matter of Controversie Secondly That they are the Law and Rule Thirdly That Princes are no Iudges Fourthly Nor a whole Council of Reformers The Pope's being the Iudge and Interpreter overthrown by Reasons And by his palpable miss-inâ—erpreting the Scriptures in his Decretals The stile of his Court His Breves about the Oath of Allegeance p. 328. Of the state of the Church of England and whether it may be reconciled with Rome Whether the Pope be Antichrist PAULO V. VICE-DEO OUR LORD GOD THE POPE The Relation de moderandis titulis with the issue of it p. 358. Of the safeness to joyn to the Roman being confessed a true Church by her Opposites Mr. Wotton's perversion printed at Venice The Badge of Christs Sheep p. 372. Of fraud and corruption in alledging Councils Fathers and Doctors The falsifications imputed to Morney Bishop Jewel Mr. Fox Tyndals Testament Parsons four Falshoods in seven Lines A tast of the Forgeries of the Papacy In the antient Popes Epistles Constantines Donation Gratian The Schoolmen and Breviaries by the complaint of the Venetian Divines The Father 's not untoucht Nor the Hebrew Text. p. 384. Of the Armies of evident Witnesses for the Romanists Whence it seems so to the unexpert Souldier The Censure of the Centurists touching the Doctrine of the Antients Danaeus of S. Augustines opinion touching Purgatory An instance or two of Imposture in wresting Tertullian Cyprian Augustine p. 409. Of the Invisibility of the Church said to be an Evasion of Protestants The Promises made to the Church and her glorious Titles how they are verified out of S. Augustine falsly applyed to the whole Visible Church or Representative or the Pope p. 422. Of lack of Vniformity in matters of Faith in all Ages and Places What matters of Faith the Church holds uniformly and so the Protestants Of Wickliff and Hus c. whether they were Martyrs p. 426. Of the original of Reformation in Luther Calvin Scotland England Whether King Henry the Eighth were a good Head of the Church Of the Reformers in France and Holland The original growth and supporting of the Popes Monarchy considered p. 429. Of lack of Succession Bishops true Ordinations Orders Priesthood The fabulous Ordination at the Nags-Head examined The Statute 8 Elizabeth Bonners slighting the first Parliament and Dr. Bancrofts answer to Mr. Alablaster The Form of Priesthood enquired of p. 453. Of the Conclusion Master Waddesworth's Agonies and Protestation The Protestation and Resolution of the Author and conceipt of Mr. Waddesworth and his accompt p. 481. THE COPIES OF Certain LETTERS Which have passed between SPAIN and ENGLAND In matter of RELIGION Salutem in Crucifixo To the Worshipful my good Friend Mr. William Bedell c. Mr. Bedell MY very loving Friend After the old plain fashion I salute you heartily without any new fine complements or affected Phrases And by my inquiry understanding of this Bearer that after your being at Venice you had passed to Constantinople and were returned to S. Edmundsbury in safety and with health I was exceeding glad thereof for I wish you well as to my self and he telling me further that to morrow God willing he was to depart from hence to imbark for England and offering me to deliver my Letters if I would write unto you I could not omit by these hasty scribled lines to signifie unto you the continuance of my sincere love never to be blotted out of my breast if you kill it not with unkindness like Mr. Ioseph Hall neither by distance of place nor success of time nor difference of Religion For contrary to the slanders raised against all because of the offences committed by some we are not taught by our Catholick Religion either to diminish our natural obligation to our native Country or to alter our moral affection to our former friends And although for my change becoming Catholick I did expect of some Revilers to be termed rather than proved an Apostata yet I never looked for such terms from Mr. Hall whom I esteemed either my Friend or a modester Man whose flanting Epistle I have not answered because I would not foil my Hands with a poetical Railer more full with froth of Words than substance of Matter and of whom according to his beginning I could not expect any sound Arguments but vain Flourishes and so much I pray let him know from me if you please Unto your self my good Friend who do understand better than Mr. Hall what the Doctors in Schools do account Apostasie and how it is more and worse than Heresie I do refer both him and my self whether I might not more probably call him Heretick than he term me at the first dash Apostata But I would abstain from such biting Satyrs And if he or any other will needs fasten upon me such bitter terms let them first prove that In all points of Faith I have fallen totally from Christian Religion as did Iulian the Apostata For so is Apostasie described and differenced from Heresie Apostasia est error hominis baptizati contrarius Fidei Catholiae ex toto and Haeresis est error pertinax hominis baptizati contrarius Fidei Catholicae ex parte So that he should have shewed first my errors in matters of Faith not any error in other Questions but in decreed matters of Faith as Protestants use to say necessary to Salvation Secondly That such errors were maintained with obstinate pertinacy and pertinacy is where such errors are defended against the consent and determination of the Catholick Church and also knowing that the whole Church teacheth the contrary to such opinions yet
sith you required a full Answer and the delay it self had need to bring you some interest for the forbearance And because you mention the vehemency of discreet Lawyers although methinks we are rather the Clients themselves that contend since our Faith is our own and our best Freehold let me entreat of you this ingenuity which I protest in the sight of God I bring my self Let us not make head against evident Reason for our own credit or fashion and factions sake as Lawyers sometimes are wont Neither let us think we lose the Victory when Truth overcomes We shall have part of it rather and the better part since errour the common enemy to us both is to us more dangerous For Truth is secure and impregnable we if our Errour be not conquered must remain Servants to corruption It is the first Praise saith S. Augustine to hold the true Opinion the next to forsake the false And surely that is no hard mastery to do when both are set before us if we will not be either retchless or obstinate From both which our Lord of his mercy evermore help us and bring us to his everlasting Kingdom Amen Your very loving Brother W. Bedell Horningshearth Octob. 22. 1620. THE COPIES OF Certain Letters c. Salutem in Christo Iesu. CHAP. I. Of the Preamble The Titles Catholick Papist Traytor Idolater SIR I Do first return you hearty thanks for the truth and constancy of your love and those best effects of it your wishing me as well as to your self and rejoycing in my safe return out of Italy For indeed further I was not though reported to have been both at Constantinople and Ierusalem by reason of the nearness of my name to one Mr. William Bidulph the Minister of our Merchants at Aleppo who visited both those places I thank you also that your ancient love towards me hath to use that Word of the Apostle now flourished again in that after so many Years you have found opportunity to accomplish your promise of writing to me though not as ye undertook of the state of Religion there yet which I confess I no less desired the Motives of the forsaking that you had professed here Whereof since it hath pleased you as ye write now to give me an account and by me to Mr. Dr. Hall with some expectation also as it appears of reply from one of us I will use the liberty which you give me and as directly as I can for the matter and in Christian terms for the manner shew you mine opinion of them wherein I shall endeavour to observe that Precept of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether it be to be interpreted loving sincerely or seeking truth lovingly Neither soothing untruth for the dearness of your person nor breaking charity for diversity of Opinion With this entrance my loving Friend and if you refuse not that old Catholick name my dear Brother I come to your Letter Wherein though I might well let pass that part which concerns your quarrel with Mr. Dr. Hall with aetatem habet yet thus much out of the common presumption of charity which thinks not evil give me leave to say for him I am verily perswaded he never meant to charge you with Apostasie in so horrible a sense as you count viz. A total falling from Christian Religion like that of Julian an obstinate pertinacy in denying the Principles of the Faith necessary to salvation or a renouncing your Baptism The term Apostasie as you know doth not always sound so hainously A Monk forsaking his Order or a Clerk his Habit is in the Decretals stiled an Apostata Granatensis saith not untruly That every deadly sin is a kind of Apostasie The Apostle S. Paul speaking of Antichrists time saith There must come an Apostasie before Christs second coming and how this shall be he shews elsewhere Men shall give heed to spirits of Error and Doctrines of Devils and such as speak falshood in hypocrisie Whereby it seems that Antichrist himself shall not professedly renounce Christ and his Baptism His Kingdom is a mystery of iniquity a revolt therefore not from the outward profession but inward sincerity and power of the Gospel This kind of Apostasie might be that which Mr. Hall was sorry to find in you whom he thought fallen from the Truth though not in the Principles of Christian Doctrine yet in sundry Conclusions which the reformed Churches truly out of them maintain He remembred our common education in the same Colledge our common Oath against Popery our common Calling to the same sacred Function of the Ministery he could not imagine upon what reasons you should reverse these beginnings And certainly how weighty and sufficient soever they be we are not taught by our Catholick Religion to revenge our selves and render reproach for reproach with personal terms much less to debase and avile the excellent Gifts of God as is Poesie the honour of David and Solomon by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost himself These courses are forbidden us when we are railed upon and calumniated how much more when as S. Peter speaks We are beaten for our faults as it falls out in your case if these Motives of yours be weak and insufficient which we shall anon consider You say you are become Catholick Were you not then so before The Creed whereinto you were baptized is it not the Catholick Faith The conclusion certes of Athanasius's Creed which is but a declaration thereof saith Haec est Fides Catholica Or is not he a Catholick that holds the Catholick Faith That which was once answered touching the present Church of England to one in a Stationers Shop in Venice that would needs know what was the difference betwixt us and the Catholicks It was told him none for we accounted our selves good Catholicks When he unwilling to be put off in his answer for lack of due form in his Question pressed to know what was the difference betwixt us and them there He was answered This That we believed the Catholick Faith contained in the Creed but did not believe the Thirteenth Article which the Pope had put to it When he knew not of any such Article the Extravagance of Pope Boniface was brought where he defines it to be altogether of necessity to salvaâ—â—on to every humane creature to be under the Bishop of Rome This thirteenth Article of the thirteenth Apostle good Mr. Waddesworth it seems you have learned and so are become as some now speak and write Catholick Roman That is in true interpretation Vniversal-particular which because they cannot be equalled the one restraining and cutting off from the other take heed that by straitning your Faith to Rome you have not altered it and by becoming Roman left off to be Catholick Thus if you say our Ancestors were all till of late Years Excuse me Sir whether you call our Ancestors the first Christian Inhabitants of this Isle or the ancient Christians of the Primitive Church neither those
fall to challenge not only the infallibility but which were more dangerous the Authority of their Judge If it be thought better to leave scope to Opinions opposition it self profitably serving to the boulting out of the Truth If Unity in all things be as it seems despaired of by this your Gellius himself why are we not content with Vnity in things necessary to Salvation expresly set down in Holy Scripture And anciently thought to suffice reserving Infallibility as an honour proper to God speaking there Why should it not be thought to suffice that every Man having imbraced that necessary Truth which is the Rule of our Faith thereby try the Spirits whether they be of God or no. If he meet with any that hath not that Doctrine receive him not to House nor salute him If consenting to that but otherwise infirm or erring yet charitably bear with him This for every private Man As for the publick order and peace of the Church God hath given Pastors and Teachers that we should not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine and amongst them appointed Bishops to command that Men teach no other or foreign Doctrine which was the end of Timothy his leaving at Ephesus 1 Tim. 1.3 Then the Apostles themselves by their example have commended to the Church the wholesome use of Synods to determine of such controversies as cannot by the former means be composed but still by the Holy Scriptures the Law or Rule as you say well by which all these Iudges must proceed Which if they do not then may they be deceived themselves and deceive others as experience hath shewed yet never be able to extinguish the truth To come to Antiquity There is not any one thing belonging to Christian Religion if we consider well of more importance than how the purity of the whole may be maintained The Ancients that write of the rest of Christian Doctrine is it not a miracle had they known any such infallible Judge in whose Oracle the security of all with the perpetual tranquillity of the Church is contained they should say nothing of him There was never any Age wherein there have not been Heresies and Sects to which of them was it ever objected that they had no infallible Judge How soon would they have sought to amend that defect if it had been a currant Doctrine in those times that the true Church cannot be without such an Officer The Fathers that dealt with them why did they not lay aside all disputing and appeal them only to this Barr Unless perhaps that were the lett which Cardinal Bellarmine tells the Venetians hindred S. Paul from appealing to S. Peter Lest they should have made their Adversaries to laugh at them for their labour Well howsoever the Cardinal hath found out a merry reason for S. Paul's appealing to Caesars Judgment not Peter's lest he should expose himself to the laughter of Pagans what shall we say when the Fathers write professedly to instruct Catholick Men of the forepleadings and advantages to be used against Hereticks even without descending to tryal by Scriptures or of some certain general and ordinary way to discern the Truth of the Catholick Faith from the prophane novelties of Heresies Had they known of this infallible Judge should we not have heard of him in this so proper a place and as it were in a cause belonging to his own Court Nay doth not the writing it self of such Books shew that this matter was wholly unknown to Antiquity For had the Church been in possession of so easie and sure a course to discover and discard heresies they should not have needded to task themselves to find out any other But the truth is infallibility is and ever hath been accounted proper to Christs judgment And as hath been said all necessary Truth to Salvation he hath delivered us in his Word That Word himself tells us shall judge at the last day Yea in all true decisions of Faith that word even now judgeth Christ judgeth the Apostle sits Iudge Christ speaks in the Apostle Thus Antiquity Neither are they moved a whit with that Objection That the Scriptures are often the matter of Controversies For in that case the remedy was easie which S. Augustine shews to have recourse to the plain places and manifest such as should need no interpreter for such there be by which the other may be cleared The same may be said if sometimes it be questioned Which be Scriptures which not I think it was never heard of in the Church that there was an external infallible Judge who could determine that question Arguments may be brought from the consent or dissent with other Scriptures from the attestation of Antiquity and inherent signs of Divine Authority or humane infirmity but if the Auditor or Adversary yield not to these such parts of necessity must needs be laid aside If all Scripture be denied which is as it were exceptio in judicem ante litis contestationem Faith hath no place only reason remains To which I think it will scarce seem reasonable if you should say Though all Men are lyers yet this Iudge is infallible and to him thou oughtest in conscience to obey and yield thy understanding in all his Determinations for he cannot err No not if all Men in the World should say it Unless you first set down there is a God and stablish the authority of the Books of Holy Scripture as his voice and thence shew if you can the warrant of this priviledge Where you affirm The Scriptures to be the Law and the Rule but alone of themselves cannot be Iudges If you mean without being produced applied and heard you say truth Yet Nicodemus spake not amiss when he demanded Doth our Law judge any Man unless it hear him first he meant the same which S. Paul when he said of the High Priest thou sittest to judge me according to the Law and so do we when we say the same Neither do we send you to Angels or God himself immediately but speaking by his Spirit in the Scriptures and as I have right now said alledged and by discourse applyed to the matters in question As for Princes since it pleased you to make an excursion to them if we should make them infallible Judges or give them Authority to decree in Religion as they list as Gardiner did to King Henry the Eight it might well be condemned for monstrous as it was by Calvin As for the purpose Licere Regi interdicere populo usum calicis in Coena Quare Potestas n. summa est penes Regem quoth Gardiner This was to make the King as absolute a Tyrant in the Church as the Pope claimed to be But that Princes which obey the truth have commandment from God to command good things and forbid evil not only in matters pertaining to humane society but also the Religion of God This is no new strange Doctrine but Calvins and
might have cleared all controversies and put all Heresies to silence How durst sundry holy and learned Men have rejected his decisions whether right or wrong is not now the question unchristianly out of doubt on their parts if he had been then holden the infallible Oracle of our Religion As when Polycrates with the Bishops of Asia and Irenaeus also yielded not to Victor excommunicating the Eastern Churches about the celebration of Easter when S. Cyprian with the first Council of Carthage of eighty six Bishops had Decreed That such as were baptized by Hereticks should be rebaptized and certified Stephanus of this Decree and he opposed it and would have nothing innovated would Cyprian after that have resisted and confuted Stephanus his Letter had he known him for infallible And how doth he confute him as erring writing impertinently contrary to himself Yea let it be observed that he doth not only not account Stephanus infallible but not so much as a Judge over any Bishop See the Vote of Cyprian and note those Words Neque enim quisquam nostrum Episcopum se esse Episcoporum constituit aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem collegas suos adigit quando habeat omnis Episcopus pro licentia libertatis potestatis suae arbitrium proprium tanquam judicari ab alio non possit cum nec ipse possit alterum judicare Sed exspectemus universi judicium Domini nostri Iesu Christi qui unus solus habet potestatem praeponendi in Ecclesiae suae gubernatione de actu nostro judicandi A passage worthy to be noted also for the clearing of the independence of Episcopal Authority from the Pope which I now let pass Neither was S. Cyprian herein alone Firmilianus and the Eastern Bishops resisted Stephanus no less as appears by his Epistle which in the Roman Edition of Manutius set forth by the command of Pius the Fourth with the survey of four Cardinals whereof one is now a Saint with exquisite diligence is wholly left out And Pamelius saith he thinks purposely for himself is of the mind that it had been better it had never come forth But to return to our purpose The Fathers of the Council of Africk and S. Augustine amongst them resist three Popes succeeding each other Zosimus Boniface and Coelestinus about appeals to Rome shall we think they would ever have done it if they had known or imagined them to be the supream and infallible Judges in the Church I let pass the Schism between the Greek and the Latin Church which had not happened if this Doctrine had been anciently received Nay it is very plain in Story that the Bishop of Rome's lifting up himself to be universal Bishop chiefly caused it To conclude neither Liberius nor Honorius to omit many other Bishops of Rome had ever been taxed of heresie if this had anciently been currant that the Pope is infallible I will not stand now to examine the shameful defence that Bellarmine makes for the latter of these bearing down Fathers Councils Stories Popes themselves as all falsified or deceived herein Wherein because he is learnedly refuted by Dr. Raynolds I insist not upon it This I press That all those Writers and Councils and amongst them Pope Leo the Second accursing Honorius did not then hold that which by Pighius and the Iesuites is undertaken that the Pope is infallible Even the Council of Basil deposing Eugenius for obstinately resisting this Truth of the Catholick Faith That the Council is above the Pope as an Heretick doth shew the sense of Christendom even in these latter times how corrupt soever both in Rule and Practice And because you make this infallible Judge to be also an infallible Interpreter of Holy Scripture how happens it that Damasus Bishop of Rome consults with Hierome about the meaning of sundry Texts of Scripture when it seems himself might have taken his Pen and set him down quickly that which should have taught both him and the whole Church not only without danger but even possibility of error Sure we are little beholding to the diligence of our Ancestors that have not more carefully registred the Comentaries or because they have had for sundry Ages small time to write just Commentaries the Expositions which in their Sermons or otherwise the Bishops of Rome have made of Holy Scripture A work which if this Doctrine were true were more worth than all the Fathers and would justifie that blasphemy of the Canon Law where by a shameful corruption of S. Augustine the Decretals of Popes are inrolled amongst the Canonical Scriptures I am already too long in so plain a matter Yet one proof more which is of all most sensible Being admonished by this your conceit of an infallible Interpreter I chanced to turn over the Popes Decretals and observed the interpretation of Scriptures What shall I say I find them so lewd and clean beside the purpose yea oftentimes so childish and ridiculous both in giving the sense and in the application that I protest to you in the presence of God nothing doth more loath me of Popery than the handling of Holy Scripture by your infallible Interpreter alone Consider a few of the particulars and especially such as concern the Popes own Authority To justifie his exacting an Oath of Fealty of an Archbishop to whom he grants the Pall is brought our Lord Iesus Christ who committing the care of his Sheep to Peter did put too a condition saying Si diligis me pasce oves meas Christ said If thou lovest me feed my Sheep Why may not the Pope say If you will swear me fealty you shall have the Pall. But first he corrupts the Text Christ said not If thou lovest me Then Christ puts not Peters love as a condition of Feeding but feeding as a proof and effect of his love And if the feeding of Christs sheep were sought love to him and them might suffice to be professed or if he would needs have more than Christ required to be sworn What is this to the Oath of Fealty Straight after to the Objection that all Oaths are prohibited by Christ nor any such thing can be found appointed by the Apostles after the Lord or in the Councils he urges the Words following in the Text Swear not at all quod amplius est à malo est that is saith he Evil compels us by Christs permission to exact more Is it not evil to go from the Popes obedience to condemn Bishops without his privity to translate Bishops by the Kings commandment See the place and tell me of your Interpreters Infallibility Treating of the Translation of Bishops or such as are elected unto other Sees he saith That since the spiritual Band is stronger than the carnal it cannot be doubted but Almighty God hath reserved the dissolution of the spiritual Marriage that is betwixt a Bishop and his Church to his own judgment alone charging that whom God hath joyned man
as Pope in his own Law intending to inform and bind the Church and that in matters with him of the greatest importance that may be touching his own Authority and as he pretends absolutely necessary to Salvation to all the Sons of Adam I might heap up many more but these may suffice for a sample You may and so do by your self I beseech you observe these kind of Interpretations in other Points also and in other the Decretals and Breves of Popes which as I hear are lately come forth in great Volumes You shall find many Mysteries in your Faith that perhaps you know not of as That you cannot please God because you are married for so is that place of the Apostle interpreted qui in carne vivunt Deo placere non possunt That not only the Wine in the Chalice but the Water also is transubstantiated first into Wine then into Christs blood That it was not watry moisture but the true element of Water which issued out of Christs side You shall find confession of sins to the Priest proved by the Text Corde creditur ad justitiam ore autem fit confessio ad salutem That the good Ground that received the Seed in the Gospel is the Religion of the Friers Minors That this is that pure and immaculate Religion with God and the Father which descending from the Father of Lights delivered exemplariter verbaliter by the Son to his Apostles and then inspired by the Holy Ghost into S. Francis and his Followers contains in it self the Testimony of the Trinity This is that which as S. Paul witnesseth no Man must be troublesome unto which Christ hath confirmed with the prints of his Passion The Text is de caetero nemo mihi molestus sit ego n. stigmata Domini Iesu in corpore meo porto It is marvel if S. Paul were not of the Order of S. Francis That when Christ said Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus dicbus he meant it of remaining and being with them even by his bodily presence S. Augustine upon the same Text denies this and saith that according to the presence of his Body he is ascended into Heaven and is not here That the Father of the Child Christned and his Godfathers Wife may not marry because according to the Lords Word the Husband and the Wife are made one flesh by marriage That the number of Four doth well agree to the degrees prohibited in corporal marriage of which the Apostle saith The Man hath not the power of his own body but the Woman nor the Woman power of her body but the Man because there are four humours in the body which consist of the four Elements For Conclusion you shall find it by a commodious interpretation concluded contrary to many Texts of Scripture out of Scripture it self that no simple and unlearned Man presume to reach to the subtlety of the Scripture because well it was enacted in the law of God that the Beast which should touch the Mountain should be stoned For it is written Seek not things higher than thy self For which cause the Apostle saith Be not more wise than it behoveth but be wise to sobriety One thing more also you shall find that now adays this spiritual Man and sole infallible Interpreter of Scripture seldom interprets Scripture or uses it in his Decretals and Breves Nay the stile of his Court hath no manner of smack or savor of it A long compass of a Sentence intricate to understand yea even to remember to the end full of swelling Words of Vanity with I know not how many ampliations and alternatives after the fashion of Lawyers in Civil Courts not of sober Divines much less of the Spirit of God in his Word Some Man would perhaps think this proceeds from an affectation of greatness and the desire of retaining Authority which seems to be embased by alledging reason or Scripture and interpreting Texts For my part I account it comes as much from necessity For it is notorious That neither the Popes themselves nor those of the Court the Secretaries and Dataries which pen their Bulls and Breves have any use or exercise in Holy Scripture or soundness in the knowledge of Divinity or skill in the Original Tongues wherein Gods Word is written all which are necessary to an able Interpreter And therefore it is a wise reservedness in them not to intermeddle with that wherein they might easily fault especially in a learned Age and wherein so many watchful Eyes are continually upon them And to this very poverty and cautelousness I do impute it That the present Pope in his Breves about the Oath of Allegiance useth not a Word of Scripture But tells his Faction that they cannot without most evident and grievous injury of Gods honour take the Oath the tenour whereof he sets down Word for Word and that done adds Quae cum ita sint c. Which things saith he since they be so it must needs be clear unto you out of the Words themselves that such an Oath cannot be taken with the safety of the Catholick Faith and of your Souls sith it containeth many things which are apparently contrary to Faith and salvation He instances in no one thing brings neither Scripture nor Reason but a Quae cum ita sint without any premisses Which loose and undergrounded Proceeding when as it is occasioned the Arch-Priest here and many other of that side to think these Letters forged or gotten by surreption he sends another of the same tenor with this further Reason Haec autem est mora pura integraque voluntas nostra This is now to be more than an Interpreter even to be a Lord over the Faith of his Followers to make his Will a Reason What would you have him do to alledge a better he could not a weak and unsufficient one he was ashamed he thought it best to resolve the matter into his sole Authority Whereby he hath proved himself a fallible both Iudge and Interpreter yea a false witness against God and the Truth commanding by the Apostle Christian Men to be subject and to give every Man their dues fear to whom fear honour to whom honour and much more if there be any difference Allegiance to whom Allegiance CHAP. IV. Of the state of the Church of England and whether it may be reconciled with Rome BUt of your Interpreters Infallibility enough Your next doubt Whether the Church of England were of the true Church or no was resolved with a Paralogism partly by reason of equivâ—â—â—tion and diverse acception of the terms The Church and to err partly by composition and division in the connexion of these by those Verbs can or may Let us examine the several parts of your Syllogisme The Proposition The true Church cannot â—rr is confirmed by the consent of all Excuse me Sir if I withhold my consent without some Declaration and Limitation I say
my coming to Venice I fell upon certain Letters and Reports set forth as it was told me by F. Possevine and not unlike by his mindfulness to take all occasions to advance the credit of his Society Amongst them there is one said to be a true Relation of the manner how M. Pickering Wotton was converted to the Catholick Roman Faith indited as it is said and subscribed by himself before his death In which by a certain Father of the Company of Jesus an Englishman by Nation the like Discourse was used as it is said to him That he should consider well that he and other Protestants did not deny that the Catholicks might be saved in their Faith whereas all the Catholicks that either lived at the present or ever were hold it as a most certain Article of Faith That the Protestants and other Hereticks cannot be saved out of the Catholick Church therefore if he should become a Catholick he should enter into that way which was safe by the consent of both parts This consideration he saith mov'd him not much then But after praying to God as he was also advised by that Father to direct him into the right way if he were out of it suddenly he saw a certain Light very clearly before his Eyes in form of a Cross. Whereupon incontinently there was offered unto him such a heap of Reasons and Arguments by which was shewed that the Catholick Faith is the only way of Salvation and that of the Protestants on the contrary most absurd and abominable that most evidently he was convinced without any the least doubt And these reasons which then offered themselves to him were for the most part such as he did not remember that he had ever heard them in all his life Thereupon with unspeakable joy he called back the Father told him what had happened prayed him to hear his confession and he examining him upon all the Heads of the Catholick Religion which he most firmly and entirely believed heard his confession c. But this Narration deserves little credit First creating Mr. Wotton for the greater glory of their triumph a Baron unless the Fathers in Spain or Possevine in Italy have a faculty to create Barons Next it is a very improbable thing that Mr. Wotton dying of a Calenture should have so good a memory as to indite so exact and artificial a Narration with such formality and enforcements in fit places as any Reader of understanding must needs perceive came out of a diligent Forge and needed more hammering and fileing than so But that of all other is most Legend-like that howsoever this motive of yours is used yet it is not made the effectual inducement but a heap of reasons in the twinkling of an Eye and causing him not only to believe in the gross but to be able to give account of all the Heads of the Catholick Religion that is all the points of controversie at this day between the Romanists and the reformed Churches in a fit of an Ague in the twinkling of an eye Excuse me This is beyond the blind Beggar that recovered his sight at S. Albans that could tell the names of all colours as soon as he saw them What then Was not Mr. Wotton reconciled and saw he not a light in form of a cross Yes And this your motive was used to him also and perhaps moved him more than all the heap of Reasons besides But shall I tell you here what I have heard from the mouth of one that was himself then in Spain that both could know the truth of this matter and had no reason to tell me a lye sith what he said came freely from himself without fear or hope or almost enquiry The Gentleman being sick and weak in his Brain the Father that Possevine tells of brought under his Gown a Picture and upon a sudden presented it before him This might be the light in form of a Cross perhaps a very Image of Christ crucified which together with the lightness of his fancy occasioned that your Motive though it self also very light might carry him as a little weight is able to sway much where the Beam it self is false If this be true as I take the living God to record I feign nothing but do relate what hath been told me as on the one side I doubt not but God in his mercy did interpret of the Gentlemans Religion according to his right judgment and perswasion in his health and not according to the erroneous apprehensions of his fancy in his sickness which even in his best health was ever very strong in his sleep as some that have conversed with him have told me So on the other side they shall bear their judgment whatsoever they were that would with so cruel a craftiness take advantage of his infirmity and make his story after a stale to draw on others As for the heap of Arguments to convince the Protestants Faith to be absurd that must be by the way the Articles of the Creed Possevine's Catholick Hyperboles are well enough known in Venice and he hath been there told to his Head That if in things past whereof he might have been informed he proves a most lying Historian it might more easily fall out that he should prove a most false and ridiculous Prophet in things to come And in truth he hath proved so hitherto Wherefore I reckon these garnishments of Mr. Wotton's perversion to be like the rest of his News touching the Conquest of Moscovia by Demetrius that Impostor whom he boâ—â—teth in a manner to have been the Scholer of his Society Where he tells the World that the Army cryed out often God and the Prayers of our Fathers the Jesuites have subdued the Hearts of our enemies and inclined them under our noble Prince Demetrius That Demetrius turning to the Priests of the company of Iesus was heard to say Lo that which you foretold me O Fathers in the time of that sorrowful fligâ—â— of ours is now come to pass to wit that as the Lord God had afflicted me much so on the contrary he would much comfort me and that therefore I should not doubt of a full victory These Words Possevine stamps in his former Relation in Capital Letters But when this bold enterprise was overthrown and this suborned fugitive slain and shamefully dragged up and down the Streets of Mosco then lo the reports were That a light was seen over his body in the night time c. Let them that walk in darkness follow such Lights as these be We are no children of the Night nor of darkness Leaving therefore those unheard of Arguments which Possevine hath not only cunningly drawn a veil over that we may not see them but exempted by priviledge of a miracle that we may not try them this which he hath shewed us let us bring it a little to the clear day-light And even at the first view it is apparent that this Argument is meerly foreign
not drawn from any thing à parte rei as what the true Church is what it teacheth or such â—â—ke but from opinion and testimony What Men say of that of Rome and of the reformed Churches c. Now Opinions are no certain grounds of Truth no not in natural and civil matters much less in Religion So this Argument at the most is but Topical and probable Let us see the parts of it And first that ground The testimony of our selves and of our contraries is much more sufficient and certain than to justifie our selves alone Surely neither the one nor the other is sufficient or certain It is true that if other proof fail and we will follow conjectures he is in probability an honester Man that others beside himself say well of than he that alone testifieth of himself And yet according to truth this latter may be a right honest Man and dwell as we say by ill neighbours or where he is not known or requires not the testimony of other Men Whereas the other being indeed a knave is either cunning to conceal it or hath suborned other like himself to say for him or dwels by honest Men that judge and say the best And in this very kind our Saviour attributes so little to testimony as he pronounces a woe to them that all Men speak well of So in our case it is more probable I grant if there were no other Argument to clear it but Opinion and most Voices that you have the true Church and are in the way of salvation than we because we give you a better testimony than you do us But it is possible we are both deceived in our Opinions each of other we through too much charity and you and others through ignorance or malice Herein undoubtedly we have the advantage of you and the rest and do take that course which is more safe and sure to avoid sin that if we do fail of the truth yet we be deceived with the error of Love which as the Apostle saith hopeth all things and is not puffed up We avoid at the least that gulph of rash judgment which me thinks if the case be not too too clear we should all fear With what judgment you judge you shall be judged Thou that judgest another condemnest thy self But that you may a little better consider the weakness of this discourse if the testimony of our selves and our contraries were sufficient and certain to make truth and ever more safe and secure to follow that side which hath that testimony it had been better to have become a Jewish Proâ—elyte in the Apostles times than a Christian For the Christians acknowledged the Jews to be the people of God heirs of the promises and of Christ and stiled them Brethren notwithstanding their zeal to the Ceremonies and Traditions of their Fathers excused their ignorance bare with them laboured to give them content in all things Whereas they to the contrary called those that professed Christ Hereticks and Sectaries accursed them drew them out of their Synagogues scourged them cast them in Prison compelled them to blaspheme As you do now Protestants to abjure though in other cruelties I confess you go far beyond them By like reason a Pagan in S. Augustine's time should rather have made himself a Christian among the Donatists than with the Catholicks For the Catholicks granted the Donatists Baptism to be true accounted them Brethren The Donatists to the contrary renounced their Brother-hood and Baptism both re-baptized such as fell to their side used these forms to their Friends Save thy Soul become a Christian like to those used by your Reconcilers at this day Lastly consider if this ground of the testimony of our contraries for our part and their lack of ours for theirs be sure you have justified the cause of the Protestants in the main Question Which is the better Religion For whatsoever a Protestant holds as of Faith you cannot deny to be good and Catholick nor any Christian Man else For he binds him to his Creed to the Holy Scriptures and goes no further And in these he hath your testimony for him But he denies many things which you believe and accounts them foreign yea repugnant to Faith as the Popes infallibility Transubstantiation Purgatory worshipping of Images invocation of Saints In all these you speak only for your selves in some of these you have not us only but all other Christians your opposites to say nothing of the Jews and Turks whom I might as well chock you withal as you do the Protestants with Anabaptists So by this reason our Profession is more safe and secure and questionless is more Catholick than yours Neither have we in this discourse the Argument only as you see very appliable and favourable to us but which I would entreat you by the way to observe the conclusion it self often granted by moderate and sober Men of your own side viz. That our course is in sundry things more safe than yours As in making no Image of God In trusting only in the merits of Christ. In worshipping none but the Trinity In directing our Prayers to our Lord Jesus Christ alone In allowing Ministers to marry In diverse other Points also many of your side say the same with the Protestants and defend us from the imputations which others of you lay upon us as is shewed in the Catholick Apology by the reverend Bishop of Chester This to the proposition Let us come to the Assumption where you mince too much the Protestants Opinion touching the Church of Rome when you make them say It is peradventure faulty in some things Nay without peradventure they say It is corrupt in Doctrine superstitious and Idolatrous in Religion tyrannical in government defiled in manners from the crown of the Head to the soal of the Foot no soundness in it as the Prophet saith of another like it yet the vital parts not perished ready to dye yet not dead A true Church though neither the Catholick Church nor yet a sound member of the same That also is false in the assumption that the Puritans deny the Church of England to be a true Church Unless the Puritans and Brownists be with you all one which you have made diverse Sects above and then are you to blame as to multiply names whereof I have told you before so now again to consound them What is now the Conclusion It would be more safe and secure to become a Roman Catholick But the Proposition will not infer thus much simply but only in this respect For Topical arguments as you know hold only caeteris paribus We must then inquire if there be no other intrinsical arguments by which it may be discerned whether cause be the better whether pretence to the Church and Truth more just more evident Whether it may be warranted to return to Babel because God hath some people there when as he commands those that are there to come out
omitted so pregnant passages as these be for Peters Primacy and the Popes Chair had they been extant in Cyprian's Work when he wrote But we cannot doubt of his good affection to the See of Rome either for his orders sake or his dedicating that Work to Pope Martine the Fifth or his approbation of the two first Tomes which he saith he caused to be seen and examined per sollennes viros and testifies of to be commended of all encouraging him to write the Third It remains therefore that Cyprian hath received this garnishment since Walden's time And here with this occasion of his silence about those things which are thrust into Cyprian I will though besides my purpose use his Testimony about a certain sentence of the Author of the imperfect work upon Matthew ascribed to Saint Chrysostome which the Romish faction will needs race out It is in the eleventh Homily about the middle The words are these Si enim vasa sanctificata ad privatos usus transferre peccatum est periculum sicut docet Balthasar qui bibens in calicibus sacris de regno depositus est de vita Si ergo haec vasa ad privatos usus transferre sic periculum est in quibus non est verum corpus Christi sed mysterium corporis ejus continetur quanto magis vasa corporis nostri quae sibi Deus ad habitaculum praeparavit non debemus locum dare Diabolo agendi in iis quae vult In this sentence the words that I have enclosed from the rest are inserted saith Bellarmine by some Scholar of Berengarius for they are not in all Copies No marvel That is more marvel that they are in any since the Canonizing of Transubstantiation But in Walden's time and before the words were thus read for in his third Tome Cap. 30. they are thus cited save that by the error of the print ministerium is put for mysterium and he adds there Hanc tanti viri sententiam cum magistrum suum Witcleff vident librò de sermone Domini in monte Cap. 37. assumere tanquam sacram qualiter praedones Lollardi audent c. But saith Bellarmine These words make not to the matter in hand for the Author of the Homily spake of the holy vessels of Solomons Temple which Balthasar prophaned and in those vessels neither was the Lords true body nor yet the mystery thereof Well if they be not to the purpose if they speak of the vessels of Solomons Temple let them stand in the Text still What need ye purge them out of the newer editions at Antwerp and Paris Belike Father Iohn Matthews saw further into this matter than Bellarmine for he casts out this sentence with the dregs of the Arians although there be no Arianism in it that I can perceive The truth is the Author speaks of the Vessels used in the Lords Supper in his own time For those words sicut docet Balthasar c. are brought in by the way for a confirmation from a like example the sense hanging in the mean while which is resumed again when he goes on Si ergo haec vasa as any indifferent Reader may perceive Yea take away these words and the sinews of the sentence are cut for the force of the argument lies in the comparison of the prophaning of the holy Vessels and of our bodies That is a sin yet Christs body is not contained in them but the mystery thereof but God himself dwells in these These examples to omit some other do make me think that howsoever the corrupting of the texts of the Fathers is not now perhaps so usual as of other Writers and good reason why they know that many look narrowly to their fingers neither is there any place almost that is of special pith that hath not been observed and urged in the handling of the controversies of this age by some or other yet where there is any colour of differing Copies or any advantage to be taken that way it is not slipped And who knows not that sometimes the change of a Letter yea of a Point or Accent makes the whole sentence of another meaning As for example that of Saint Augustine Qui fecit te fine te non justificat te â—ine te Read it interrogatively and it is as strong for Soto and the Dominicans as if it be read assertively for Catharine and the Jesuits And in very deed when I consider the eagerness of these men to win their purposes and their fearful boldness with the holy Word of God I know not how a man should look for conscience or respect at their hands in the writings of men For to omit that the Trent-Fathers have canonized the Vulgar Latin Edition which so many times departeth from the original inspired by the holy Ghost adding detracting changing often to a diverse sometimes to a contrary sense To let pass also how Sixtus V. and Clemens VIII do tyrannize over and delude the Faith of their followers about that Edition binding them unto two diverse Copies and sometimes flat contradictory and so as the form of each must be inviolably observed without the least particle of the Text added changed or detracted The former derogating all Faith and authority from whatsoever Bibles hand-written or printed of the Vulgar edition which did not agree with that which he set forth ad verbum ad literam The latter telling that when the same Pope endeavoured to set it out he perceived not a few things to have crept into the holy Bible through the fault of the Presâ— and that it needed a second care whereupon upon he decreed to bring the whole work again to the Anvile had he not been prevented by death so derogating all Faith from the former Whereas the truth is Sixtus did not only endeavour to set out his Bible but prefixed his Bull before it ad perpetuam rei memoriam and sent one of the Copies to the State of Venice as I heard at my being there howsoever since it was cunningly recovered again set it to sale publickly and saith in his Bull that he corrected the faults of the Press with his own hand and which most of all convinceth Pope Clement's Preface of falshood the difference of these Editions is not in fault of the prints but in that the one follows the old erroneous reading the latter the reading of other Manuscripts according with the Hebrew Chaldee Greek or the Latin edition of the Catholick Kings Bible observed by the industry of the Divines of Lovaine But to forbear to urge this contradiction in the very foundation of belief which some man peradventure would press so far as to inferr that the Romanists have no faith for he that believes contradictories believes nothing What shall we say of that impiety to corrupt the original Text according to the vulgar Latin See an example hereof in the first promise of the Gospel Gen. 3. where the Serpent is threatned that the seed
your Ordination there is no Word said And as little there is in Scripture of your Sacrifice which makes Christ not to be a Priest after the order of Melchisedeck c. with much more to this purpose Where my Defence for your Ministry hath been this That the Form Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye remit they are remitted c. doth sufficiently comprehend the Authority of preaching the Gospel Use you the same equity towards us and tell those hot Spirits among you that stand so much upon formalities of Words That to be a Dispenser of the Word of God and his holy Sacraments is all the duty of Priesthood And to you I add further that if you consider well the Words of the Master of the Sentences which I vouched before how that which is consecrated of the Priest is called a Sacrifice and Oblation because it is a Memorial and Representation of the true Sacrifice and holy Offering made on the Altar of the Cross and joyn thereto that of the Apostle that by that one Offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified and as he saith in another place through that Blood of his Cross reconciled unto God all things whether in Earth or in Heaven you shall perceive that we do offer Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead remembring representing and mystically offering that sole Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead by the which all their sins are meritoriously expiated and desiring that by the same we and all the Church may obtain remission of sins and all other Benefits of Christs Passion To the Epilogue therefore of this your last Motive I say in short Sith we have no need of Subdeaconship more than the Churches in the Apostles times and in truth those whom we call Clerks and Sextons perform what is necessary in this behalf Sith we have Canonical Bishops and lawful Succession Sith we neither want due intention to depute Men to Ecclesiastical Functions nor matter or Form in giving Priesthood deriving from no Man or Woman the Authority of Ordination but from Christ the Head of the Church you have alledged no sufficient Cause why we should not have true Pastors and consequently a true Church in England CHAP. XII Of the Conclusion Mr. Waddesworth's Agonies and Protestation c. YEt by these you say and many other Arguments you were resolved in your understanding to the contrary It may well be that your Understanding out of its own heedless hast as that of our first Parents while it was at the perfectest was induced into error by resolving too soon out of seeming Arguments and granting too forward assent For surely these which you have mentioned could not convince it if it would have taken the pains to examine them throughly or had the patience to give unpartial hearing to the Motives on the other side But as if you triumphed in your own conquest and captivity you add that which passeth yet all that hitherto you have set down viz. That the Church of Rome was and is the only true Church because it alone is Antient Catholick and Apostolick having Succession Vnity and Visibility in all Ages and Places Is it only antient To omit Ierusalem are not that of Antioch where the Disciples were first called Christians and Alexandria Ephesus Corinth and the rest mentioned in the Scriptures antient also and of Antioch antienter than Rome Is it Catholick and Apostolick only Do not these and many more hold the Catholick Faith received from the Apostles as well as the Church of Rome For that it should be the Vniversal Church is all one as ye would say the part is the whole one City the World Hath it only succession where to set aside the enquiry of Doctrine so many Simoniacks and Intruders have ruled as about fifty of your Popes together were by your own Mens Confession Apostatical rather than Apostolical Or Unity where there have been thirty Schisms and one of them which endured fifty years long and at last grew into three Heads as if they would share among them the triple Crown And as for dissentions in Doctrine I remit you to Master Doctor Halls peace of Rome wherein he scores above three hundred mentioned in Bellarmine alone above three-score in one only head of Penance out of Navarrus As to that addition in all Ages and places I know not what to make of it nor where to refer it Consider I beseech you with your wonted moderation what you say for sure unless you were beguiled I had almost said bewitched you could never have resolved to believe and profess that which all the World knows to be as false I had well nigh said as God is true touching the extent of the Romish Church to all Ages and places Concerning the agonies you passed I will say only thus much if being resolved though erroneously that was truth you were withholden from professing it with worldly respects you did well to break through them all But if besides these there were doubt of the contrary as methinks needs must be unless you could satisfie your self touching those many and known Exceptions against the Court of Rome which you could not be ignorant of take heed lest the rest insuing these agonies were not like Sampsons sleeping on Dalilahs knees while the Locks of his Strength were shaven whereupon the Lord departing from him he was taken by the Philistins had his Eyes put out and was made to grind in the Prison But I do not despair but your former resolutions shall grow again And as I do believe your religious asseveration that for very fear of damnation you forsook us which makes me to have the better hope and opinion of you for that I see you do so seriously mind that which is the end of our whole life so I desire from my Heart the good hope of salvation you have in your present way may be as happy as your fear I am perswaded was causeless For my part I call God to record against mine own Soul that both before my going into Italy and since I have still endeavoured to find and follow the truth in the Points controverted between us without any earthly respect in the World Neither wanted I fair opportunity had I seen it on that side easily and with hope of good entertainment to have adjoyned my self to the Church of Rome after your example But to use your words as I shall answer at the dreadful day of judgement I never saw heard or read any thing which did convince me nay which did not finally confirm me daily more and more in the perswasion that in these differences it rests on our part Wherein I have not followlowed humane conjectures from foreign and outward things as by your leave methinks you do in these your motives whereby I protest to you in the sight of God I am also much comforted and assured in the possession of the truth but the undoubted Voice of God in his Word which is more
swear †This were to prove one absurdity by a greater and to undertake that some one Text of Scripture is false or forged because all the whole Bible is so Or having called one a Jew or Bastard c. to make him amends by telling him all his kindred were such But that Book and Chapter is indeed pitifully professed And by it and by insinuating here an offence of too much charity may be easily perceived the substance of your proficiency in Divinity * The weakness of a stout Heart 1 Cor. 4.13 This is the Catholick Faith * Bonifac. 2. Epist. ad Eulalium Annotat. in Acts 11.26 * De veland Virg. c. 1. * Lib. 1. c. 3. †Epist ad Dardanum 1 Cor. 3 3. Socrat. l. 4. c. 27. Hom 23. in Act. 1 Joh. 2.20 27. 4.1 Luke 16. Cic. 1. de Legibus Ephes. 4. Acts 15.6 Risposta ad una lettera c. Tertull. de Praescript c. Vincent Lyrinens Lib. de unitate Eccles c. 5. 19. Joh. 1.51 Instit. l. 4. c. 20. August contr Crescon l. 3. c. 51. Prooemiol 5. Regula 1. 13. 1 Tim. 3.15 1 Cor. 14.20 Analysi Fidei Cathol par 8. Oseae 2.11 Epistola ad Pompeium C. in Canonicis dist 19. Signifiâ—asti de electione Joh. 21 15. Matt. 5.34 Inteâ— corpor De translat Episcopi Matth. 19.26 De sacra unctione Esay 9.6 1 Sam. 9.24 Solicitae De majoritate 1 Pet. 2.13 v. 1â— Matth. 26.52 Jer. 1.10 Exod. 22.28 †Thou shalt not rail on the Gods nor curse the Prince of thy people Gen. 1.16 Joh. 21.16 Matth. 16.19 3 Ex ore De his quae fâ—unt Tit. 11. Heb 4 12.4 Per venerabiâ—em Qui â—ilii sint legitimi Deut. 17.8 1 Cor. â— 3 Matth. 16.18 Cap. fundamenta de Elect. in 6. Joh. 10.16 Extra unum Testam Cant. 4.9 C. quoniam De immunitate Luk. 22.38 Rom. 13.1 Jer. 1.10 1 Cor. 2.15 Rom. 12.2 Gen. 1.1 Rom. 8.8 * Syricius Epist. 4. Innocent Ep. 2. †Joh. 19.34 C. Inter cunctas * Rom. 10.10 ‖ Matt. 13.8 * Jam. 1.27 * Gal. 6.17 †Matth. 28.20 Lo I am with you c. Clem. 3. de Reliq Tract in Ioh. 50. ‖ C. Martinus de cognat spirit 4. Mat. 19.5 * C. non debet de consang 6 Cor. 7.4 * Cum ex De haereticis 5. Heb. 12.20 Exo. 19.13 Ecclus. 3.22 Rom. 12.3 Matth. 16. Rev. 2.5 1 Pet. 1.5 Mat. 24.24 Apologia pro Garneto c. 5. Auvertimento al P. Ant. Possevino p. 7. 14. Luk. 6.26 Matt 7.6 Rom. 2.1 Aug. Epist. 48. in Psal. 39. De Baptismâ— l. 2. c. 7. Abuâ—ensis Bâ—llarmine Faber Erasmus Cassander Râ—fmeiâ—er Aâ—eas Sylâ—ius Isai 1.6 D Rayâ—olds Thes. 5. Joh. 10.27 c 13.35 Rev. 18.7 Dialog l. 3. c. 8. Dist. 96. c. Constantinus Concil Milev c. 72. Concil Afric c. 12. c. 〈◊〉 qu. 9.6 De Doctrina Chr. l. 2. Ex decret 8. Concil Trid. De Sacram. Euch. l. 2. c. 32. De verbis Domini Serm. 15. c. 11. Serm. de Nativitate Mar. Virginiâ— See D. Reinolds Conf. with Hart. c. 6. § 2. 2 Tim. 3.13 Relat. p. 21. * Uâ—bici cujusdum De Unitate Eccl. c. 24. Evarrat in Psal. 103. Conc. 1. Pag. 6. Pag. 7. Pag. 8. Sleidan l. 8 Jer. 7.12 Matt. 3.10 Lib. 16. An. 1547 1563. * 18000. This Passage above is to be considered as a Relation not as the Authors Opinion But yet for fear of taking it by the wrong Handle the Reader is desired to take notice That a Subject's resisting his Prince in any cause whatsoever is Vnlawful and Impious Henry IV. Cap. 8. Christophorus à Sacro bosco Dubliniensis Lib. 2. c. 29. 8 Eliz c. 1. Mark 2.25 Pag. 7. De desperata Calvini causa c. 11. C. Lâ—â—â—is â— Reâ—tina C. Nobis Lib. 4. dist 12. De Câ—â—â—ecrat dist 2. Loc. Theol. lib. 12. c. 12 * f. Eucharisticum Heb. 10.14 2 Cor. 1.24